Laura Farrell

Paddling School Instructor

Age: 25
Height/Weight: 5' 7'' / 135lbs
First Year Paddling: 2001
First Year at NOC: 2002 as a raft guide; 2004 as an instructor
Favorite Boats: Dagger Nomad, Liquid Logic Vision 44
Favorite Rivers: Chattooga

Fun Facts: Laura Farrell learned to kayak from NOC's first "Rapid Progressions" clinic and has gone from beginner to expert in only a few short years. A favored instructor by many, Laura gets along with everyone. Her life's ambition is to build a whitewater park and to continue exploring new areas and find rivers to paddle around the world.

Currently, Laura is a mild mannered academic who hails from Florida but is nearing completion of her mechanical engineering degree at the University of Tennessee. During the dry times she enjoys thai food, riding her 2 speed bike, and spending countless hours working calculus equations by candlelight. But when it rains her alter ego "Luara For-real" takes over and she trades that bike for a boat - the only math she's calculating is feet-per-mile. While she enjoys playboating, her real love is for creeking. She's a regular at the Green where she can be seen hucking off Gorilla while yelling "Poisson's Ratio and Differential Equations are the bomb!" Last winter she took her creeking skills to Ecuador where she punished the southern hemisphere into submission.

Certifications:

• National ACA Whitewater Kayak Instructor
• Advanced Wilderness First Aid
• BS Degree in Mechanical Engineering - University of Tennessee